Dow introduced as Huron Chapel Associate Pastor - Dec. 14, 2017
BY SHAWN LOUGHLIN
Following the dissolution of Living Water Christian Fellowship, long-time pastor Ernest Dow is now a part of the Huron Chapel team in Auburn.
Dow has been brought on as an associate pastor with the ever-growing church. He will serve half-time with the church until the end of the year and three quarters-time for 2018.
Many of Dow’s duties with Huron Chapel will support the work of Pastor Mark Royall. In fact, Royall said that he and Dow are a perfect pastoral fit for one another, in that Dow is strong where Royall is weak and vice versa.
In an interview with The Citizen, Royall said he really felt it was God’s timing that the stars aligned for Dow and Huron Chapel.
Royall had been asking the church’s elders for an associate pastor for some time. With the church now expanded to a second service on Sundays, the workload was getting to be just too heavy for one pastor, he said.
Two Sundays ago, Royall said, the church welcomed nearly 300 parishioners (some of whom have made their way to the church via the closure of Living Water) and with that amount of people, plus other ministry work throughout the week, it was simply becoming too difficult for Royall to do the work on his own.
Dow will work on the church’s administrative side, Royall said, working with spreadsheets and its organizational calendar. Royall admits that those formal aspects of running a church are not his strong suit, but they are Dow’s, which makes them a perfect fit at Huron Chapel.
Dow will also work on the ministerial side, preaching occasionally and making pastoral calls throughout the community, something to which he has been no stranger from his days with Living Water and Blyth United Church.
At Huron Chapel on Sunday, Dow was the featured preacher for both services, re-introducing him to the church’s congregation.
Dow isn’t the only person Huron Chapel has hired on in the last few weeks. Jacoby Pike has also been brought on to work with the church’s children’s ministry as its leader.
Royall said it’s an exciting time for the church, both from a growth and a personnel viewpoint.
Dow said that he feels Living Water Christian Fellowship achieved a lot in its time in Blyth, but that there’s a “critical mass” that’s needed for volunteerism and running a church and Living Water simply wasn’t reaching that level any longer. The lack of volunteers caused those who did work for the church to become burnt out and just made for difficult circumstances.
Over the years, Dow says the church did a lot of good in the community, including its outreach meals around Easter and Christmas, its food box project and a number of other projects that helped those in need around Blyth and the surrounding area.
As for working for Huron Chapel, Dow said it’s not much of a stretch at all. The two churches were already both part of the Blyth ministerial and they worked together through the ABC (Auburn-Blyth-Clinton) Women’s Ministries, so he’s been familiar with the work of Huron Chapel for years and has greatly admired it over that period.
The dedication of the Huron Chapel congregation, Dow said, is something to which he’s greatly looking forward. The church has established a culture of service and volunteerism in which members take vacation time so they can work at the church’s annual Vacation Bible School and that level of dedication is hard to find.
For more information on Huron Chapel, visit huronchapel.com.